Readers have their place even in book clubs

February 17, 2002|By Mary Schmich.

The TV networks recently have taken to airing a deeply disturbing ad for salad dressing. "Deeply disturbing" and "salad dressing" aren't terms that ordinarily go together, but just listen to this commercial, which opens with a gaggle of women converging on a friend's home and moving into a frenzy of saladmaking.

Girl 1: We're here!

VOICEOVER: Around here, book club's just an excuse for us to be together.

Girl 2: Love those shoes. They are so ... me.

VOICEOVER: We talk. We eat. We do great salads.

Girl 3: Just chopped everything I could get my hands on.

Concocting their salad, the women jabber on about Kraft dressings, fat content, etc., then settle into chowing down.

Girl 4: Perfect.

Girl 2: Do you love this?

Girl 3: The book?

Girl 5: Oh yeah, the book.

Oh yeah, the book? This last line is tossed off in a tone so dismissive that the first time I saw the ad I was convinced that Girl 5 (as the official Kraft script identifies her) had scoffed at "T book?" as if, of course, no one had read the book because book club isn't about books any more than a bar called the Office is about stenography.

And there we have the trouble brewing in this commercial.

If you're a certain kind of book club member--I plead guilty--you know that at least one of those women in the ad's book club was gagging on her greens and fuming, "`Oh yeah, the book'? Yes, yes, the B-O-O-K, ladies! The book is not the after-dinner toothpick. The book is the appetizer, the main course, the salad and the dressing."

And if you're the other kind of book club member, you think that any pretentious poseur who comes to book club unwilling to talk about life, love, kids, clothes, bosses and vacations should shut up and go to the library.

The Kraft ad exposes the ugly underbelly of many book clubs, especially--dare I say it?--the all-female kind. It suggests the dangerous division between those who come to book club primarily for the book and those who come primarily for the club. These warring expectations eventually tear some groups apart.

I know, respect, even love book club members of both types, which just goes to show you can adore people with whom you wouldn't want to share a book club.

"Some people in the book club get very annoyed at people like me, frankly," says one friend, a serious reader who nevertheless often lacks the time or inclination to read her club's monthly selection. "But I'm not going to drop out. I enjoy seeing the people. One reason I enjoy it so much is that without structure you can lose touch with people."

She's in the majority in her club, where eating dinner and catching up on each other's lives often crowd out book analysis. Yet a club expressly devoted to food and chat wouldn't work. The book--the notion of the book--is the group's glue.

"Without the book, the group would fall apart," she says. "But if it's just about the book and not about getting caught up on each other's lives, well, then, let's just take a class."

And a bad class is precisely what an overly social book club feels like to a different kind of book club member.

"There's nothing worse than getting psyched up to talk about the book and having it be like one of those bad classes in college where nobody's done the reading and nobody stays on target and the professor doesn't direct the conversation," says one self-described "hardcore" book clubbie.

In her former club, members who hadn't read the book were obliged to bring chocolate. Consequently, she often left stuffed with sweets and starving for book talk.

"You wind up talking to the mirror about the book," she says, sighing.

Is the book the reason for the club or just an excuse? As long as all the members in a club agree, the club can be happy.

Otherwise, tensions are apt to simmer until the club explodes. Which you can bet is about to happen to that salad-dressing crowd.

And one more thing: Salad? If you're going to show women talking about shoes when they're pretending to discuss books, at least have 'em eating raw steak and sipping some Wild Turkey.